Driftwood causing problems for boaters at Folsom Lake

Boating season is just around the corner and thanks to a strong winter, this year is promising to be a good season for recreational sports on lakes here in northern California.
But there has been something lurking in the water at Folsom Lake.

Author:
Carlos Saucedo

Published:
8:00 AM PDT April 21, 2017

Updated:
8:00 AM PDT April 21, 2017

Lately, navigating through Folsom Lake can be quite the challenge.

"You have to play really close attention,” said Gary Egan, an experienced boater.

Egan's been keeping an eye out to make sure all the driftwood in the water doesn’t clog his motor — and with the amount of debris floating in the lake, that has become nearly impossible.

"It's probably one of the worst that I've seen," Egan said.

Trees — or parts of them — have broken off upstream in the forest and eventually found their way down the water. Due to years of buildup from the drought — driftwood is flowing through the river system and has nowhere else to go, creating a big mess.

"Part of the reason it's so bad is because we haven't gotten a good winter to keep it flushed through the system,” Richard Preston, superintendent for Folsom State Park, said. “We haven't seen it this bad since 2006."

So bad, that it can compromise people's safety.

"People can hit large logs and break their propellers or motors, even worse, have a vessel accident,” Preston warned.

The driftwood is even a problem when trying to get boats in and out of the water. This begs the question...what are officials doing about it?

"Right now, [we're] in the process of trying to get contractors out to give us some bids, see what it's going to take to get it cleaned up, hopefully in the next few weeks we'll be moving forward with a cleanup plan,” Preston said.

The plan is to remove the driftwood by the time the Memorial Day holiday weekend kicks off.